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Haven't Got Time for the Pain
Grin and bear it? Hah! Boomers want to keep disco-dancing till we’re 103. That means finding new ways to treat our aching elbows and hips and backs. Here’s the breaking news in pain relief
By Sandy Hingston
- Illustration by Andy Potts
A WHILE BACK, MY RIGHT ANKLE started hurting. It hurt when I played tennis and during my weekly volleyball game. The pain wasn’t excruciating. On a scale of one to 10, it was maybe a three. “Nagging” would be an apt term.
I’m 50 years old, so part of me was thinking, “Well, you’re 50 years old; things are going to start hurting.” But I wasn’t about to give up volleyball. So I went to see a foot doctor. “It’s the way your feet are made,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. Stay off it as much as you can.”
Twenty years ago, I would have listened to the doctor. He knows best, right? That’s how my parents thought. What made “The Greatest Generation” so great was its stiff upper lip. Arthritis, back pain, sore muscles — these were trials to be endured. What didn’t kill them made them stronger. No pain, no gain.
Boomers are the Whiniest Generation. We don’t believe that pain makes you strong; we think that pain makes you cry. Hurting is bad. Stoicism sucks. From Watergate to bottled water, we’ve spent our lives reacting against our parents’ values. To us, the medical establishment is just that: The Establishment. And if doctors can’t help us, then to hell with them. Who needs a doctor when it’s so much cooler to have your chakras rebalanced? Herbal medicine … well, isn’t that like pot? The result of this revolution is that Americans now spend some $50 billion a year on “alternative medicine” — and much of that is out-of-pocket, since insurers tend not to cover Reiki therapy.
And guess what? Once hospitals noticed all that money being siphoned off to herbal remedies and homeopaths, the strangest thing happened. The Establishment that always told us those folks were charlatans couldn’t move fast enough to take them under its wing. Philadelphia, for once, has been ahead of the curve on this trend. Jefferson has its Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine. (“Natural medicines, acupuncture, meditation, massage.”) Riddle Memorial in Media offers chi gong and laughter therapy. All over the region, hospitals and treatment centers are serving up new approaches to what experts have called the current “epidemic” of chronic pain.
They’re going after patients like “Paul,” a 50-year-old Main Line father of two who suffers from temporomandibular joint syndrome, or TMJ. Pain flares in his jaw when he’s stressed or unhappy: “It took every ounce of joy from my life. It hurt even to talk to my little boys.” His search for relief began with his dentist and has since led to doctors, painkillers, an orthodontist, biofeedback, a shrink, hypnotism and three chiropractors. Now he’s seeing an acupuncturist.
Eastern medicine practitioner Ian Cyrus, who works at Myrna Brind, admits that if he were in a car accident or had a raging infection, he’d beeline for the emergency room: “That’s where Western medicine excels.” But it’s not so hot at pain management. Some 90 million Americans, like Paul, experience chronic pain, from aching ankles to migraine headaches to lower-back spasms.
I’m 50 years old, so part of me was thinking, “Well, you’re 50 years old; things are going to start hurting.” But I wasn’t about to give up volleyball. So I went to see a foot doctor. “It’s the way your feet are made,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. Stay off it as much as you can.”
Twenty years ago, I would have listened to the doctor. He knows best, right? That’s how my parents thought. What made “The Greatest Generation” so great was its stiff upper lip. Arthritis, back pain, sore muscles — these were trials to be endured. What didn’t kill them made them stronger. No pain, no gain.
Boomers are the Whiniest Generation. We don’t believe that pain makes you strong; we think that pain makes you cry. Hurting is bad. Stoicism sucks. From Watergate to bottled water, we’ve spent our lives reacting against our parents’ values. To us, the medical establishment is just that: The Establishment. And if doctors can’t help us, then to hell with them. Who needs a doctor when it’s so much cooler to have your chakras rebalanced? Herbal medicine … well, isn’t that like pot? The result of this revolution is that Americans now spend some $50 billion a year on “alternative medicine” — and much of that is out-of-pocket, since insurers tend not to cover Reiki therapy.
And guess what? Once hospitals noticed all that money being siphoned off to herbal remedies and homeopaths, the strangest thing happened. The Establishment that always told us those folks were charlatans couldn’t move fast enough to take them under its wing. Philadelphia, for once, has been ahead of the curve on this trend. Jefferson has its Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine. (“Natural medicines, acupuncture, meditation, massage.”) Riddle Memorial in Media offers chi gong and laughter therapy. All over the region, hospitals and treatment centers are serving up new approaches to what experts have called the current “epidemic” of chronic pain.
They’re going after patients like “Paul,” a 50-year-old Main Line father of two who suffers from temporomandibular joint syndrome, or TMJ. Pain flares in his jaw when he’s stressed or unhappy: “It took every ounce of joy from my life. It hurt even to talk to my little boys.” His search for relief began with his dentist and has since led to doctors, painkillers, an orthodontist, biofeedback, a shrink, hypnotism and three chiropractors. Now he’s seeing an acupuncturist.
Eastern medicine practitioner Ian Cyrus, who works at Myrna Brind, admits that if he were in a car accident or had a raging infection, he’d beeline for the emergency room: “That’s where Western medicine excels.” But it’s not so hot at pain management. Some 90 million Americans, like Paul, experience chronic pain, from aching ankles to migraine headaches to lower-back spasms.
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